The Protege needed tires, so I did some online shopping & comparing and decided on the Yokohama S-Drive. Do read this post with a grain of salt – I only have 20 curvy country miles on the new tires, and I’m used to BFGoodrich G-Force Sports of unknown age & mileage. They were on the Protege when I bought it three years ago, and I put 27k miles on them.

The S-Drives are noticeably quieter. My biggest (only, really) gripe about the BFGs has been that they’re pretty loud.  I suspected by looking at the tread design that the Yokos would be quieter, and they are.

The ride isn’t quite as harsh.  The sidewall seems to be a bit less stiff than the BFGs. This is a welcome improvement, especially given the next point.

Turn-in is significantly better, and less steering angle is required for a given course change. The latter was very noticeable while taking a curve.  I wasn’t pushing the tires, only doing about five over, but I definitely needed less input on the steering wheel than before. This surprised me more than once on the way home.

I’m going to put about 100 miles on the tires before I push them very hard. So far though, I’m pleased.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed or even know where to start when you first sign up with Twitter.  To help you along, I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learned using Twitter. I hope you find them useful.

1) Who you follow is much more important than who follows you. If you followed a bunch of people who talk about nothing that interests you, would you find that valuable? Of course not. Only follow people and companies you find interesting and/or helpful.

2) This is closely related to #1 – Do not automatically follow whomever follows you.  It might seem like the courteous thing to do, but what it really does is clutter up your Twitter feed with a lot of useless information.  Also, you will quickly find that many of the people who follow you are only spammers trying to game the system.  When someone new follows you, take a look at what they put out on Twitter.  If seem interesting, follow them. If not, don’t.

3) Twitter is best used for two-way communication, not as a one-way marketing channel.  Take the time to respond when someone sends you an @ mention.

4) Don’t start following a ton of people until you have put out some good content on Twitter yourself. I’m constantly getting followed by new users who are following 1300 people but have only tweeted eight times. It should go without saying that I don’t follow them back because I don’t find them interesting or helpful.

5) Use http://search.twitter.com/ to find interesting people to follow.  If you’re into knitting, search for the word ‘knitting.’  Peruse the results, follow links that people share, send people @ replies if you find what they’ve shared interesting, and follow them.  You can do this for any subject you’re interested in.

6) Follow people off Twitter, too.  Find someone really cool on Twitter who also has a blog?  Leave comments over there. Twitter is great, partially because it’s a great gateway to other sites.

7) Don’t expect overnight success.  Twitter, as with everything else worthwhile, takes time.

Don’t be afraid to talk to big names – you’ll be surprised how often you get a response from someone semi-famous – but don’t make it the only reason you’re on Twitter, either.  I’ve had some cool interaction with some pretty big names that I would not have had of not for Twitter.

9) Use your real name.  If you decide to use a moniker, make your real name easy to find.  Olivier Blanchard uses his company name on Twitter, @thebrandbuilder, but you only need to look at his Twitter page to find his real name.  My web host, Surpass Hosting, is on Twitter as @surpass.  If you look at their Twitter page you’ll see the names of the people who use the account, and they always sign their tweets with their initials so you always know who you’re talking to.

10) Promote other people and their content.  If someone you follow tweets something interesting, retweet it so your own followers can see it.  There’s also a tradition on Twitter called Follow Friday when you can suggest to your followers other people they might find interesting.  Some people just provide a big list, but it’s more helpful to explain why you’re suggesting someone.

11) Ease into it. Get used to using it at your own pace.  I currently follow about 1200 people.  At one point last year when I was following 250 people, I couldn’t imagine following very many more.  I obviously got past that, and that’s because I didn’t push myself unnecessarily and got used it.

This really just scratches the surface. I haven’t talked about the various online services and pieces of software built around making Twitter easier to use or more effective.  None of that will do you much good, though, until you have the basics down.  I’ll cover my favorite apps and services in a future post.

I discovered this nifty online tool via GarageJournal.com, the Icovia Room Planner by CB Structures.  It’s Flash-based and thus it works across nearly all platforms and there’s nothing to install.

The app lets you lay out rooms of all kinds – kitchens, living rooms, garages, etc – and has a decent variety of objects you can place in your rooms, such as furniture, fixtures, and shop equipment, and the expected assortment of walls, doors, and windows.

For a free app, it rocks. It does have a few quirks though. You can’t change the order in which objects are layered.  For example, if you want to place a drill press on a workbench, you have to place the workbench first.  If you place the drill press first, it will appear to go underneath the workbench.  To workaround this, you’d have to either delete & re-add the drill press, or create a copy of the original object, then delete the original. It would be helpful if you could change the ordering.

When you start a new plan, the dimensions shown will be the inside dimensions, and the app will add six inch walls to the perimeter.  This means a 16×24 plan will have outside dimensions of 17×25. If you want 16×24 to be the finished size, you have to start with a 15×23 plan.

Even with its quirks, I really like the app. You definitely can’t beat the price. If you want to save your plans, you have to register by giving them your email address and ZIP code.  They don’t ask for your address, and giving your name is optional.

Here’s a screen shot of the plan I worked out for my future shop (click to embiggen):

You can also print your plans and share them with people via email.  The email will contain a link to the planner and will load the plan you’ve created. For example, click here to see and play with the plan I made for my shop.

Check out the app and let me know what you think.